


Like Hunt the Wumpus, but Better

by Talya Firedancer (fyredancer)



Category: Tokio Hotel
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-30
Updated: 2011-03-30
Packaged: 2017-10-17 09:29:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/175384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fyredancer/pseuds/Talya%20Firedancer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A flat tire strands the Tokio Hotel tour bus in the middle of nowhere. With Bill on the verge of throwing a legendary tantrum, Tom has to act fast to avert the blow-up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Hunt the Wumpus, but Better

The Tokio Hotel tour bus had a flat tire, stranding the band and their handlers by the wayside for what was likely to be hours, and Bill's lower lip was wobbling in a dangerous threat of imminent pout.

It was situation: critical as far as Tom was concerned.  Time for action, and he had to be quick about it.

Georg and Gustav were going to be no help, he could see at once.  They were ensconced at the kitchenette on their laptops, both heads bent.  God might know what they were doing, but Tom sure didn't – there was no way they were getting wireless out in the wilderness of... wherever they were.  Tom wasn't even sure what country they were in by this point.  It was out in the middle of nowhere, that was the real issue.  They were miles from civilization, they'd been promised a hotel that evening, and with the amount of time it was likely to take a staffer to fetch the kind of tire that their bus needed, they'd not only be on the bus all night but behind schedule as well by the time they got moving again.

Tom knew that it was the lack of a hotel tonight that was hitting his twin the hardest, but there was nothing he could do about that.  So he'd have to try something else to lighten Bill's mood before it reached critical mass.

He looked over at Georg and Gustav and sighed.  Gus already had his headphones on, as though the explosion were inevitable.  Yet again, it was up to Tom.

Bill was perched on the couch nearby and he was biting his nails.  That was another very, very bad sign.  Bill hadn't bitten his nails since he'd begun painting them unless he was truly fretted.

"Tom—" Bill began, as Tom swung up from his leaning stance and stretched his arms over his head.

Tom glanced at his twin.  "Be right back," he said, keeping his voice low to disguise his glee over a plan newly-hatched.  He ducked into the back of the long tour bus for his own bunk where he'd left his laptop.  It didn't take him long to find the .wav file he needed; he'd used it the week before to mess with Georg the morning after a night of serious and, in the end, painful drinking.  He played it back and captured it on his phone.

Five minutes later he shouldered a backpack with some hasty makeshift supplies he'd shoved into the main zippered compartment and he returned to the forward area of the bus.

"Tom," Bill said again, looking up as Tom appeared beside him and dumped the backpack next to him on the couch.  There was more of a command in his tone this time, a certain implied 'stop and pay attention to me.'

"Do you have a torch?" Tom inquired politely.  It wasn't dark out yet, but it might be by the time his plan had run its course.

Bill blinked.  "What, you're going outside in this?"  He waved a cuticle-gnawed hand through the air as though fanning smoke.

“Yeah,” Tom said, then frowned as he remembered something.  “Oh, wait.”  He turned as Bill opened his mouth to question him again.  Tom didn't have to suppress his grin as he moved toward the back of the van; he could tell already  that Bill was getting diverted from the simmer of a nearing tantrum to curiosity.

There was a small basketball hoop in the lounge, set up months ago after one of the staffers had made an impulse purchase.  None of them had used it in forever and the basketball that went with it was lost, anyhow, so Tom had no qualms about gutting it.  He had to dismantle a curtain rod, too, but he considered it lost in a good cause.

The curtain rod came from Georg's bunk.

Humming the chorus to a Samy D song under his breath, Tom returned to the front of the bus with his makeshift net over his shoulder.  While he'd been back there he had located a handheld torch and slipped it into his voluminous pocket.  He was all set.

“All right,” Bill's voice stopped Tom in his tracks as he scooped the backpack up from the couch and slung it over his other shoulder.  “What is that, a net?  Where are you going, what are you on your way to do?”

"Oh...probably nothing you'd be interested in," Tom said, careful to pitch his words on the edge of casual but not overly so.  It was a fine line to walk; Bill knew him too damned well and what Tom could slip past reporters, their bandmates, or even their parents didn't usually fool Bill.

“Tell me anyhow,” Bill insisted, looking up from the couch with big eyes.  He had one arm wrapped around his knees and he looked as though he were about to burst into tears.

It was a facade – Tom could tell Bill was so curious he was practically vibrating.

“I'm going on a shrike hunt,” Tom said, hitching his backpack higher on his shoulder and glancing toward the door of the bus.

Bill's chin lifted.  “A what?” he said, after a pause.  He shook his head, brow furrowing.

“A shrike hunt,” Tom repeated.  “They only inhabit places way out in the middle of nowhere like this.  And when is the next time we're going to be in the middle of nowhere?”

“Oh, a shrike hunt,” Bill said, spacing the words out.  His frown cleared.  He nodded as though he knew exactly what Tom was talking about.

Tom had to duck his head to conceal a grin.  Bill had <I>no idea</I> what Tom was talking about – what was a smooth poker face for scores of interviewers and even their management team was a transparent look of incomprehension to Tom.

“You could come with,” Tom said off-handedly, “but the grass looks kind of tall out there and I'm sure you don't want to get your boots dirty.”  It wasn't quite a jeer, but close enough.  Bill was wearing very pointy-toed, heeled cowboy-style boots that were probably worth as much as one of Tom's guitars.

Bill sprang up off the couch, nearly toppling over in his haste to uncoil himself.  “Whatever, I can get  new ones.  We're not, like, gonna go far, are we?”

Tom shrugged as he automatically reached out a hand to steady his twin.  Bill's shoulder blade was hot beneath his palm; he was always warm.  The cool air outside might do them both some good.  “We'll go until we find one,” he said.  “You ready?”

“I guess,” Bill said, casting a dubious look at the makeshift hunting net propped over Tom's shoulder.  “Give me that, I'll carry it.”

“No way, you don't know what you're doing,” Tom denied, passing it to his other hand and holding it out of Bill's reach.

“Do too,” Bill insisted.  “Don't be a bastard.”

“Watch how you talk about my mother!”

Bill rolled his eyes and followed Tom out of the bus.

Predictably, Saki stood outside, arms folded, ready to bar passage on the way to anything potentially exciting.

“We're going on a shrike hunt,” Tom explained.

Saki raised his brows.

Tom gave him a wink, glad Bill was standing to the other side of his winking eye.  “We've got our phones on us.  We won't be long.  And we're not going to get lost in the middle of an open meadow.”

With a shrug, Saki moved aside to let them pass.

“You hope,” Bill muttered, as they moved past the sparse gravel shoulder at the side of the highway and trudged into the scrubby brush at the edge of the meadow.

“Have some faith, Bill,” Tom said.  He plowed through the taller grass, breaking a trail for his brother who floundered close behind him.  They struggled through the thick-standing grass of the meadow until the road and the bus disappeared behind them.  They walked a long way, until Tom was sweating and his hair itched at his nape, and Bill was cursing.

“I should have changed my shoes,” Bill said very quietly, so low Tom almost missed it.

"Okay," Tom said, coming to a stop once they had forged a tortuous path toward the lone tree that branched up above the meadow.  In the distance, the sun was setting and it bathed everything in watery golden light, washing out any other color but that of faded yellow.  Tom fiddled with his backpack and pulled his camera out.  "Here, just in case."

"I'd rather have the net," Bill told him, but took the camera anyhow.

"Ha, like you're coordinated enough to catch a shrike," Tom scoffed.  He twitched the handle of his pieced-together hunting net and smirked at Bill.

"Well, I..." Bill huffed, then trailed off, looking at Tom expectantly.

Tom nodded to himself, bending his head over the backpack again.  Now Bill wanted to ask 'what next,' but didn't dare for fear of exposing his lack of knowledge.

“Now we've got to lure it out,” Tom explained, pulling his cell phone out.

Bill nodded as though this were the most logical thing in the world.

“The best way to get one to come is to call to it,” Tom said, punching buttons on his phone until he found the .wav file.  “I mean, if you imitate its call, it should come looking for the other shrike, because they're very territorial.  But I don't think my phone is loud enough, so...” He hit play to cue up the file.

Bill's face scrunched as the sound file played.

Tom nodded, biting down on his lower lip as the first long warbling note was followed by a 'whoop, whoop whoop.'

“Really?” Bill said, making a face.  “So we've got to...”

“You've got a better voice,” Tom said quickly.  “And you're better at imitating sounds.  If you can call it out, I bet I can catch it!”

Bill stared at Tom uncertainly.  “You're serious,” he stated.

“Do you need me to play the sound file again?” Tom asked.

Bill sighed, biting his own lower lip briefly, then he wrinkled his nose at Tom.  “Yeah, I guess.  Play it again.”

Waaaaaaarble, whoop whoop whoop.

It was dead silent out in the middle of the meadow.  There wasn't even a rustle from a single stalk of grass.  Tom could feel Bill's eyes on him as he busied himself stowing his phone, shifted his backpack, then gripped his net in both hands.  He lifted his head to meet his brother's eyes and gave him a tense, expectant nod.

“Fine,” Bill grumbled, looking away.  “We'd better get a shrike out of this.  Pictures, at the very least.”

He inhaled, pulling in breath from deep inside himself, from the gut and not the chest as though preparing to belt out an intense note over the cascading hands and swaying heads of a packed stadium instead of a wind-ruffled empty field.

Bill warbled, he whoop-whoop-whooped.

Tom held his net at the ready in white-knuckled hands.  He didn't know how much longer he could keep this up.

Bill warbled again, and whooped with enthusiasm.  He was bouncing on the balls of his feet now.

In the middle of Bill's third pitch-perfect shrike call, Tom lost it.  He doubled over, dropping the net as he laughed like a maniac.

Bill cut himself off mid-whoop and punched Tom in the shoulder.  “You asshole!” he yelled.

Tom laughed harder.  He bent over, bracing against his thighs.  His face was probably red and there were tears dampening the corners of his eyes.  “Oh my god,” he gasped.  “You got so into it.”

“There's no such thing as a shrike, is there?” Bill demanded, hitting Tom again.

Tom shook his head, dislodging a few dreadlocks until they dangled against his cheek.  “I should have kept the camera,” he said, fighting a fresh surge of laughter.  “I could have gotten a picture of your face!”

Bill folded his arms stiffly across his chest and turned his head away.  “I can't believe you, Tom!”

“Oh, get over it,” Tom chided, straightening and reaching over to tweak a piece of his brother's hair.  “There are shrikes, but a shrike hunt...?  No.”

Bill jerked away, still scowling.  "You did this to make fun of me, to see how gullible I am again," he complained.

"No!" Tom exclaimed instantly.  "I did it to get you out of the bus, to get you away from everything for a little while."

Bill angled his body toward, rather than away from Tom and tilted his head at him.  All he had to do was give him the <I>look.</I>

"Okay, maybe a bit to see how far you'd go," Tom admitted.  "At least I didn't make you climb the tree; I was thinking about it.  But it got us out of the bus and into fresh air, right?"

"You hate fresh air," Bill pointed out.

"Well... not if it gets me alone with you for five minutes," Tom muttered.

Bill thought about this, then sidled up to Tom with an irrepressible smile breaking out over his face.  “You're the only guy I know who could be such a jerk and so sweet at the same time.”  He slipped his arm through Tom's and dropped the camera into Tom's pocket in the same motion.

Tom screwed up his face.  “Ugh, don't call me sweet.”

“Fine,” Bill sniffed, imperious.  He tugged on Tom's arm.  “So let's watch the sunset, while we're out here.”

Now that had been the real reason Tom had led them toward the meadow's distant tree.  He nodded and pulled Bill back with him until they were both leaning against the wide, rough trunk.  They watched together as the sun sank lower toward the vague shapes of heathery-purple hills on the horizon.  Tom snapped a few pictures, one of them prominently featuring his brother's ear as Bill took fresh belated offense over the shrike hunt prank and went for Tom's ribs.

Everything was quiet, the darkness folding down around them in perfect silence.  Tom pulled his torch out as the light left them, the ghost grays of dusk blending into night.

“Hey,” Bill said, nudging him.

Tom grunted.

“Thanks.”  Bill said it quietly, like it was an admission of weakness.

“Shut up, don't mention it.”

They waited until the first sprinkle of stars glittered down at them from the nighttime sky.  At last Tom stirred, removing his arm from around his twin with reluctance and stepping toward the tall grass.  He began to brush at his shirt, removing trace evidence of his encounters with nature, then realized with distaste that he was probably going to have to throw all his clothes in the wash.  Bill was at his elbow, reaching for but not quite daring to grab the torch in Tom's other hand.

“Tom,” Bill said, plucking at his sleeve with anxious fingers.

“Yeah?” Tom answered.

“Which way is the bus, again?”

<I>We're not going to get lost in the middle of an open meadow,</I> Tom had assured Saki.  He stared at the tall grass that encircled them and lifted his torch.

“Well, shit.”


End file.
